


THE DUCATO

by LSRichards



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSRichards/pseuds/LSRichards
Summary: Just another night at Chateau de Lioncourt...





	1. The Ducato Part One

(Note: Part One is in screenplay format, but AO3 does not support that, so just pretend it's in 12-point Courier.)

 

THE DUCATO

 

INT. CHATEAU DE LIONCOURT – NIGHT

The VAMPIRES LESTAT, LOUIS, ARMAND, DAVID, MARIUS, ETC, are all together in the salon, Marius seated, reading beside a table.

Apropos of nothing, Armand walks over and sets upon the table next to Marius a 15TH CENTURY VENETIAN DUCATO.

MARIUS

(moved)  
You remember. 

ARMAND

I remember everything. Now. 

Marius sweeps up the coin and then makes a twirling gesture with a forefinger, as if to say, well, turn around.

Armand turns and sits before Marius. 

ARMAND

He'll do it, but you have to pay him. 

LOUIS

Do what?

 Marius places his hands on Armand's back… and rubs. It rips a carnal cry out of Armand. 

ARMAND

Ah! 

The backrub progresses, and so do Armand's moans. He manages to speak. 

ARMAND

He gives the best backrubs! 

MARIUS

Which would reduce you to jelly, if memory serves. 

 

He switches technique, digs in. 

ARMAND

Ah! Thumbs! 

The cries and moans continue, building and building, unashamedly sensual until finally, Marius stops. 

ARMAND

(panting)

Thank you. I enjoyed that. 

LESTAT

I think we all enjoyed that!

  



	2. THDE DUCATO - PART TWO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armand knows Marius very well, and knows how to get what he needs. 
> 
> WARNING: Things take a dark turn. GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE.

THE DUCATO PART TWO:

TE AMO (AND HE WAS)

  
“I think we all enjoyed that!” Lestat exclaimed, and then watched as Armand rose, crossed the room, sat down, picked up a copy of _Archicréé,_ and flipped nonchalantly through its pages, as if Marius had not, upon his rising, bent ever so slightly forward, had not opened his arms ever so slightly wide, had not expected a hug that never came. 

Lestat looked at Louis. Louis looked at David. David looked at Lestat, and then all three, as one, turned and looked at Marius, who slouched in his chair, his elbow on the arm, his fingers curled against his lips, glowering across at his seemingly unconcerned fledgling, and there was no sound in the room save the crackling of the fire and the turning of the pages.

Marius rose. Crossed the room. Bent, and into a seashell ear said: “Follow me.”

Marius walked out of the library door. The room held its breath.

Armand set aside the magazine. Rose. Walked out the door, and behind him, Pandora and Bianca clasped hands.

In the hall, they faced one another. “What must I do to end this?” Maruis asked, his arms folded across his chest. “Because I tire of it.”

Armand thought, weighing logistics in his head. “Meet me in New York,” he replied at length, “But give me a day's lead.” And they stood, and there was nothing for Marius to do but bow ever so slightly and say, “Very well.”

 

●

 

New York. Trinity Gate.

Marius entered the unlocked front door and knew instantly there were no mortals anywhere in the building. If there had been any servants left on duty while their master and his dependents were away, they had been dismissed.

Marius looked up, and beheld his fledgling standing barefoot on the bottom stair before him, in a simple smock and dark, loose pants.

“You ask what you can do?” Armand said.

“Yes,” Marius replied.

Stepping off the stair, Armand walked down an unlit hallway, opening a door and disappearing inside. Marius followed.

He followed down another flight of stairs, into what must have been a basement, his vision easily penetrating the murky dark.  Armand turned a corner.

Marius entered a dungeon. There was nothing but stone walls, stone floors, and, hanging from the far wall, a pair of iron manacles. His child stood before him, and in his hand was a scourge of leather thongs, each one tipped with a metal barb. Armand held it, handle out, to him.

“This?” Marius said. “You ask _this,_ of _me?_ ”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Armand tilted his head, his eyes soft. “Three hundred years,” he said. “Three hundred years of evil, of viciousness; of torture, rape and murder. These are the sins upon my soul, with no redemption possible.” Again, he held out the flail.

Marius looked at the vicious barbs. They would rip his flesh apart. “I refuse.”

“It is this or the fire,” Armand replied. “Pacaya? Or would Vesuvius be more fitting? Or perhaps an industrial grinder, as the mortals do to unwanted chicks. Would that work?” Without warning, his eyes flamed alive, enraged. “You saw me kill cruelly _once,_ and that alone revulsed your delicacy, how do you think it felt to do it, and do it, and do it? I _will not_ live any longer with these crimes unexpiated, and I _WILL NOT_ live any longer estranged from you!” And he threw the flail at Marius's feet.

Marius stared at the instrument, nausea rocking him. This, or the fire. This, or a _grinder._ This, or lose him forever.

“It is my penance to endure it,” Armand said softly. “It is your penance to inflict it.”

Marius called the flail into his hand.

“How long?” A whisper.

“Until I tell you to stop,” the measured reply.

And for the second time in as many days, Marius made the twirling 'turn around' gesture.

Armand turned, moved to stand below the manacles. Marius, his hands trembling, raised his child's hands and fastened them into the iron shackles. He curled his fingers into the back collar of the smock and tore the garment away in a single, violent gesture. Armand's back was as it was the night he was made, oh so long ago: satiny white, without blemish, flawless. Marius stepped back.

The flail sang, the barbs found their mark, flesh tore and blood flowed.

“Again.”

And so again, blood flicking through the air.

“Again.”

And again. And again. And again, again, again, until Marius lost count, lost himself in the utter mindlessness of the motion, the brutal repetition of recoil, regain and restrike, blinded by his own blood tears, again and again and again until he became conscious of a primal keening that came not from Armand but from himself.

He dropped the bloody scourge. Armand had not said stop, but could not, as he was unconscious, his full weight hanging from the iron cuffs, not an inch of his back unbloodied, a gleam of bone at the shoulder.

Marius flowed to the wall, a sound escaping him that was beyond horror, beyond oath, as his soft boots slipped in his child's blood. His own hands, always before so sure, fumbled with the manacle clasps. They gave, Armand fell, and Maruis caught him, dropping with him to the stone floor, a terrible piéta, his robe soaking in the pooled blood. Wrenching sobs escaped him, uncontrollable, that this, _this!_ was what his son needed to feel whole.

“Te amo.” The barest whisper.

“Fili mi, fili mi.”

“Te amo.”

“Amadeo!”

A wan hand lifted, a bloody finger pointed. “Door.”

Maruis lifted Armand and carried him to the door, went through.

“Right.”

Down the darkened hall.

“Door.”

Through the door, into a room lit by oil lamps and braziers. A low bed against the far wall, and in the center, a sunken bath of steaming water.

Armand smiled dreamily. “Like the first time. Remember?”

Marius carried him in. He shucked off his robe, which took water and sank, staining the water pink. Gently, so gently, he stripped away the blood-stained pants, and sitting on a submerged step, held him, laving water over the lacerations, through which, in places,  striated muscle showed.

It began with shivering, as if he were cold. Then shuddering, as walls centuries old and brutally enforced began to crumble and he began to cry, helplessly, his mind delving into unmeasurable darkness. He convulsed, as tears long imprisoned gave way to sobs, and they, in turn, to harsh, rasping breaths that were, in actuality, silent screams. Marius rocked him, making the sounds everyone makes, when one loves.

“Shh, shh, don't cry. It's all right...”

“You call me your mistake!” Five words, ripped from an unfathomable cauldron of despair.

“I should not have done so.” Marius enclosed the suffering head, kissed the knotted brow. “You never failed me,” he whispered. “It is I who failed you.”

“Te amo.” A broken moan.

“I shall never fail you again.”

“Te amo.”

Marius held him as the sobs abated, stroking auburn hair, spooning water over knitting wounds, letting the storm pass. Te amo. Te amo. And suddenly he knew that he, Marius, had been unconsciously waiting for Armand to change. Waiting, pointlessly, because that was impossible. Armand could no more stop being his, Marius's, acolyte than he could transform into another species; that had it been he, Marius, who had said _Amadeo, forget all I ever taught you about art and beauty and light, we will now become creatures of evil and live in filth and darkness,_ Amadeo would have done it, would have followed him. He was as imprinted upon his Master as a duckling upon it mother, and in absence of that Master had accepted another, and when called in dreams to trust his strength and free himself he could not because… because…

 _Because he was only a child,_ Marius thought, and felt such drenching remorse that it might have destroyed him utterly, were it not for the auburn head now resting, with infinite trust, upon his breast.

 _I do not deserve this forgiveness,_ Marius thought, and buried his face in the amber hair.

There was something that had to be said, but in what language to say it? His native Russian? Their common Latin? Not the French of the Dark Centuries, no… no, this was for going forward, into the future. English.

  
"I love you,” Marius whispered into a seashell ear. “I love you as helplessly as you love me.”

A sigh, like the swell of the sea.

“You are not my mistake,” he whispered. “You are my Jewel.”

He rose, lifting his boy from the bath and carried him to the low bed, laid him down. Armand's eyes were drifting, half-closed.

“You have lost blood,” Marius told him. “Take mine.” He slipped a hand behind Armand's head, brought his mouth to the vein. It was done, and Maruis lay, concentrating on his own heartbeat, making it strong and steady, his hand on Armand's throat, feeling swallow after swallow.

At length, he moved his child away. His eyes were glazed, leaden. Marius kissed his lips.

“Te amo,” he said, and at last, as if he'd never done it before in his entire life, mortal or immortal, Armand slept.

 

●

 

He woke to a sound both familiar and long, long unheard: a brush moving on canvas. He opened his eyes.

“Yes,” Marius said. “Now I can finish.” A few deft strokes, and he sat back.

Armand wrapped himself in the bed sheet and moved to view the canvas. It was him, lying in the bed, eyes sleepy and calm, the faintest smile on his lips… and lying on the floor before the bed, the bloody scourge. Leaning forward once more, Marius signed it, and added the title: _Amadeo Purgato._

“You should send it to the Talamasca,” Armand said. Marius chuckled.

“I just might do that,” he said, then laid aside his brush, as Armand, in his sheet, was straddling him, and if in the deep, wet kiss that followed there was silence between them, there was also perfect understanding.

“Do you see what's been restored?” Armand asked him, folding his hands behind Marius's neck. “Now I may demand as many kisses as I like.”

“They are yours to take.” So he did, again and again. Then a shadow crossed his face.

“What is it?” Marius asked.

“How is Daniel?”

“Ah. Daniel… is all right. He hunts.”

“And _floats._ ”

“Yes.” Armand frowned, a quizzical look.

“What?” Marius asked.

“When did you ever countenance petulance?” Armand said. “Or is this leniency to do with me?”

Marius sighed. “It is to do with you,” he admitted. Armand dismounted, sat on the edge of the bed.

“I have been remiss,” he said. “I have abdicated my responsibility to you.” He looked at Marius. “Thank you for caring for him.”

“He is my grandson.”

“But he is my fledgling, the first I ever made. He is stronger than this. I have been remiss.”

“There is time.”

“Yes.” Armand shifted his sheet tighter about himself. “Always that. But in the meantime, we did leave a party.”

 

●

 

They arrived back in France while the snow was still falling, entered the Chateau in their fine new clothes, moved to the salon where candles shimmered and a fire blazed. They sat on a damask sofa, Armand tucked snugly under Marius's arm.

“Hello, Marius,” Lestat said, entering the room. “Nice accessory,” he continued, nodding at Armand as if he were a purse.

“It is, isn't it?” Marius smiled, and Armand, safe in Marius's arms and secure in Marius's protection, stuck his tongue out at The Vampire Lestat.

“Ooh, don't show that unless you're prepared to use it, Vampycakes,” Lestat growled.

“All right,” Armand replied, all innocence, “where _is_ Louis?”

“Boys...” Marius said.

“Oh, s _omeone's_ in a good mood,” Lestat said, walking off.

And he was.


	3. THE DUCATO Part Three-- Marius' Revenge.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armand knows Marius very well...but Marius knows him better.

“I brought you a gift,” Marius said, and so he had: a box perhaps six inches square, wrapped in dull-gold paper  
and tied in a cheery red ribbon. Armand opened it, and discovered a pair of black leather cuffs, lined in fur.

“I couldn't have shackles ruined for me forever,” Marius said.

“We'll use them later,” Armand replied.

LATER

“Hm, now how do I want you?” Marius mused aloud, and then: “Oh, I know,” and he picked Armand up and  
tossed him across the room, sailed him onto the wide, velvet-draped bed. Armand landed—much more  
gracefully than the last time-- and then lay docile as Marius cuffed his hands to the iron bedstead behind his head.

“Provoking child,” Marius said. “That was very naughty of you, to make me do that.” He leaned in close.  
“But you forget,” he said, “I know you very, very well.” And moving faster than Armand could follow, he  
grabbed a naked foot.

“No!” Armand cried, because he hated hated _hated_ to be tickled. “Stop it! Marius!” He twisted, free leg  
kicking until it, too, was captured, and then both slender ankles were pinioned by one large hand,  
and both helpless soles tormented.

“Stop!”

“No.”

“This isn't erotic!”

“Maybe not to _you,_ it isn't.”

“I have a leg cramp!”

Marius laughed. “Liar.”

“Staaaaaaaap!”

“All right.” Marius dropped the feet and moved up, to the ribcage, and Armand thrashed like a gaffed fish.

“Stop it! Hahahahahah...stop! Mar-eeeee-ooooos!”

“Goochy goochy goochy.”

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

Below, on the first floor, Louis entered the house and paused. “Is someone having a baby?” he asked.

Upstairs, Marius finally relented and paused to push the now-bent iron bedframe back into place.

“Now then,” he said into his fledgling's blood-tear-stained face, “Have you learnt your lesson?”

“Yes, Master,” Armand replied, chest hitching.

“And never again presume to play the master with me?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And are you now prepared to receive your punishment?”

Armand drew a long, shuddering sigh, body breaking out tingles all over. "Yes, Master,” he said.

“Good,” Marius replied and, because he had purchased the _deluxe_ shackles with the attached swivel bolt,  
flipped Armand over and administered the first warming slap.  
  
...at which point this becomes actual slash, and I'll just let y'all fill in the blanks.

THE END.


End file.
